the highest achievement

​There is a difference between beautiful and meaningful music.  They often are found together. Beautiful music appeals to our sense of hearing and evokes great pleasure in the listener.  Meaningful music speaks to them as a human, moves them, makes them feel something, and perhaps even causes them to change. In the Western classical tradition, we have lots of beautiful music.  Meaningful music is more difficult to come by. It requires a program that’s customized to the audience, maybe even commissioned for that audience. It answers the question “Why are you playing this for us?”  and, from the performer’s perspective, “Why am I playing this for them?” To me, meaningful music is the highest achievement in our field.